He wanted to touch them. More than any treasure he’d ever coveted. The swirling black designs had just teased him before, but now he took in every detail of them.
He reached out and brushed his fingers down her mehndi. It looked like ink, but looking closer, he could see that it was a part of her. Blended into her skin like it belonged nowhere else.
Starting at her lower back, he followed the floral trail up her delicate spine. She arched under his touch. He saw her face in the glass. Her lips were parted, her eyes bright.
He dipped the cloth in the warm, fragrant water and then smoothed it over her back. More than anything, he wanted to see the last of the fear leave her eyes. To see the fine tension in her muscles dissolve away.
He told himself he should be noble. He shouldn’t take advantage of her. But he wasn’t strong enough.
There was something seriously sexy about her naked in the bath, and him fully clothed and touching her. For him, sex was usually a quick, fast tumble. A strike of lightning, intense and over in a flash. It wasn’t a slow, dangerous buildup that left his pulse racing and his heart tight.
He smoothed the cloth over her shoulders, down her arms. He heard her breathing grow shallow. He dipped the fabric over the curves of her buttocks and then slid it between her legs. She made a choking cry and moved her feet apart.
He wanted to feel her skin. He let the cloth drop back into the water and then ran his hand over the bumps of her spine, over her ass, and between her thighs.
“Yes.” As Eos whispered the word, her legs trembled.
She was hot and damp and so very delicate. He fingered the soft folds and worked one finger inside her. “You’re so hot, so tight.”
She made a small mewling sound, her hips moving against his hand. He slid another finger inside her.
He needed to see her. He loved her slim, decorated back, but he wanted to watch her face as he pleasured her. Pulling his hand back, he gripped her hip and turned her. “God, look at you.”
There was no hair between her legs, just more mehndi swirling at the juncture of her thighs.
He touched her again, sliding his fingers deep. She pulsed around him, her hands clutching at his shoulders. He started a faster rhythm, sliding his fingers in and out of her warmth. His thumb brushed the small hidden nub. She cried out, water sloshing at the side of the tub.
“Come for me, Eos. Just for me.”
He bent his head. Took her mouth hard and fast, to match his caress between her thighs.
She kissed him back, moaning into his mouth. Then she shattered, throwing her head back and crying out. He held her tight as she found her release.
He continued to hold her, heedless of the water soaking his shirt, as she came down from the high. Had anything ever felt soright before? For a brilliant second, he imagined what it would be like to have a woman like her in his life.
“Take your clothes off.” Her voice was husky and thick.
Oh, he wanted to. His cock was so damn hard and the way her gaze lingered on his tattoo had his gut tightening.
Instead, he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder and lowered her back into the water. God, when had he ever turned down a willing woman?
“I want you to soak a while and enjoy your bath.” He stood. Shit, his hands were shaking. Eos Rai, with her brains, beauty, and strength, was turning him inside out.
He saw confusion, embarrassment, and a mess of other emotions swirl in her golden eyes. He wondered if she saw the same in his.
As he walked away, he called himself a fool in every language in his lingual implant.
CHAPTER TEN
She looked normal, felt mostly normal.
Eos looked at herself in the mirror as she pulled on her black cargo pants and an olive-green shirt. A quick twist and her hair was back in its usual ponytail. Okay, maybe she didn’t feel quite back to normal.
She pressed a hand to her jumpy belly. Her time on Lucifa lurked in the back of her head, but what she and Dathan had done in that bath blazed at the front.
Suva, she’d never felt passion like that. She’d expected hot, sweaty, and pleasurable. Not intense and soul destroying.
But he hadn’t wanted her enough to make love to her.
